[Macworld]

Post your comments for Frankenmac! What's in a Mac clone? here

[rickcarl]

Just for clarity, was this a personal project out of your own pocket or something paid for by Macworld for the story like the iPhone hacks? I hate to see you take the hit for a computer with non-updateable software without tech support.


Did you run any speed tests and how does it compare to EULAgized Macs? Could you feel it wasn't a real Apple experience?



Are you going to run an assembly manual with tips and driver info so the rest of us can create a Mac on the cheap?

[Gee4orce]

I have said many times that the machine I really need is 1/2 of a Mac Pro ! I don't need Quad or Octo processors - Dual will do me. I don't need 32Gb of Ram, 16Gb (potentially) is more than enough. A single optical drive is all I need, and I only really need two internal drive bays. I don't need 4 PCI slots, 2 will do me...
That is almost exactly 1/2 of a Mac Pro.
If Apple made that machine I'd buy one today. At the moment I make do with a Mac mini. It's a great machine, but I have a chain of external hard drives hanging off it, and I can only drive 1 external monitor.
This mythical machine is a gaping hole in Apple's desktop lineup. Come on Apple, I have money here I want to spend, make a machine for me to spend it on !

[wickedcool]

Thanks for the awesome article! For 15 years now (I'm 26) I've been building Wintel machines and using them at my home and office because they've always been faster for the money. Windows is terrible, but the hardware has always been the draw. Something goes wrong, you replace it with parts available at any corner computer store, and 45 minutes later you're back up and running. Now, with the new Mac OS available for kickin' PC hardware, maybe both Apple and Microsoft will feel a little more compelled to make better OS's. Since they could concievably now compete for the same hardware. My wife has been BEGGING me for a Mac (school teacher), I might be able to pull the wool over her eyes with a $1,000 PC hardware machine and a Mac OS. In fact, I know she'll never know the difference, I'll be able to sleep at night knowing if something goes wrong, I can fix it myself.

[gatoflaco]

Good article. I've built many Windows clones over the years and I thought about building a Hackintosh. I researched the parts to match the Mac Pro and in the end the cost of building my own were roughly the same as a new Mac Pro. So I decided to buy a Mac Pro instead of messing with building my own.

When you add up all the parts the Mac Pro is actually a good deal. The fantastic design and ultra quiet case are worth the few extra dollars. Still, I agree with others, Apple should make a mid priced tower. That's what I really needed.

[bgrieco]

Interesting, and how much a frankenAppleTV would cost ?
Considering it wouldn't need all that performance.

[petnekiabel]

Great article, Ron. I really like your informative style.
One question: were you going after the same noise level you had with your Mac Pro? Is it quiet? For me, one of the greatest things about Macs is how quiet they are. I wonder if you need special cooling to get that with such a clone. Would that be more expensive? Would it take a lot of time find out what parts you need for that?

[griffman]

So many questions, so little time :). Here are some answers...

{quote:title=Someone asked...:}Just for clarity, was this a personal project out of your own pocket or something paid for by Macworld for the story like the iPhone hacks?{quote}

This was money out of my own pocket. I've always built Windows gaming rigs on the side, and it'd been a couple years since my last one. Before it permanently became a Windows PC, though, I thought I'd try this project.

{quote:title=Someone asked...:}Did you run any speed tests and how does it compare to EULAgized Macs?{quote}

As noted in the article on the second page (click the "2" at the bottom of the article), I ran Xbench, Cinemark, and Quake3 for some basic tests, and I'll be sending the machine to the Macworld Lab for a full test.

{quote:title=Someone asked...:}Could you feel it wasn't a real Apple experience?{quote}

Once the machine was running, not really. Getting to the point where it was running, starting it up, and shutting it down, yes. If I had ever reached that point with it, installing system updates would have revealed the non-EULA-authorized nature of the machine as well.

{quote:title=Someone asked...:}Are you going to run an assembly manual with tips and driver info so the rest of us can create a Mac on the cheap?{quote}

No. There's a site out there that has all that info already (it was linked in a couple of other articles yesterday).

{quote:title=Someone asked...:}Interesting, and how much a frankenAppleTV would cost?{quote}

That's something I don't have the slightest idea about: I'm not sure what's inside the Apple TV, from a technical standpoint. I can't imagine you'd be able to make one for much less than $229, though. It's pretty easy to upgrade the hard drive in an Apple TV, however -- we've run a couple articles here on doing just that.

-rob.

[griffman]

{quote:title=Someone asked...:}Were you going after the same noise level you had with your Mac Pro? Is it quiet?{quote}

My Mac Pro is relatively quiet, though the ATI X1900xt video card adds to the noise level versus the stock video card. The Frankenmac is louder, though not by a huge amount. When both are on, I can hear them both, and the Frankenmac a bit more so. I tried to find the quietest case I could within my budget restrictions, and the Antec got good reviews. I also bought a CPU heat sink with a massive (and hence, slow-turning) fan. Even when just building my own Windows PCs, noise is always a consideration, but it's usually prohibitively expensive (or technically complex, ie liquid cooling) to make them super quiet.

{quote:title=Someone asked...:}For me, one of the greatest things about Macs is how quiet they are. I wonder if you need special cooling to get that with such a clone. Would that be more expensive? Would it take a lot of time find out what parts you need for that?{quote}

Agreed that the quietness of Macs is a great feature -- I love how quiet my mini is; the loudest thing in it is the replacement hard drive I put in :). To make a quiet clone, yes, you'd spend more money. You'd want an even better case, and probably something running liquid cooling. In the Mac Pro, quiet yet plentiful airflow was clearly a design criteria; in most PC cases, the main consideration is just getting lots of air into and out of the case, and noise is a secondary (if at all) consideration.

If you were really to try to come up with a true "clone" of a Mac Pro, you'd spend a lot more than I did. And at the end of your efforts, you'd still be left with something that's a hack on the inside, requires all sorts of software machinations to get running, has warranties from seven vendors, and may break the next time Apple updates the OS. For those reasons, I'm sticking with factory machines, and just hoping they build that tower machine we all seem to be wanting! :)

-rob.

[mfein]

The -one- thing I'd like to see in the Mac hardware line is a mid-priced system with an upgradeable video board. Given the way Apple emphasizes its audio and video capabilities, it's hard to see why this hasn't happened.

[Hurley42]

Great article! Reminds me of the days I used to build a computer when I needed a new one (Windows, of course).
I agree that there is a demand for something between the iMac and the Mac Pro. I just upgraded from an iMac to a Mac Pro after many months of considering if I really needed the power. In the end the iMac did not offer enough expansion or speed for my needs, so I had to spend much more than I preferred. However, I have never been happier with a computer purchase - MP's are FAST!
I may consider building something on my own in the future, but I will wait to see if Apple sees home made computers as a threat and posts updates that make them useless.

[GizmoDan]

In comparing costs, you should include OSX and iLife (which are included with each Mac.)
Also, how much time did this take you, compared to removing a Mac from the box and turning it on. This should certainly be included in any comparison.

[griffman]

This wasn't about the cost of the machine, other than tangentially. It was about how well it works, and whether I thought the end result was worth it. However, if you want to add in OS X ($129) and iLife ($79), please feel free to do so. It's still substantially cheaper than a Mac Pro. (A similarly equipped four-core (4GB RAM, 500GB hard drive) Mac Pro with the 8800GT video card is just over $3,000.)

As for the value of the time, I spent probably 30 hours on the project in total. But at least 10 hours of that was just on researching parts to buy for the Windows PC I was going to build anyway, the required assembly time, and installing/upgrading Windows. So call it a 20 hour project to do the OS X bits.

As for what those hours are worth, that answer will vary by individual. If you're making $100 an hour, then 20 hours isn't going to be worth it -- but if you're making $100 an hour, then a $3,000 Mac Pro isn't much of a financial hurdle. If you're making $10 an hour, then 20 hours is time well spent -- at least financially. Operationally, you still wind up with a hacked-together machine that's likely to break with the next major OS X update and looks like a bundle of spaghetti inside :).

But as I said, this wasn't about saving money. It was about building a machine that Apple doesn't offer, and seeing how well it worked, and noting the tradeoffs involved in the project. To me, regardless of cost, the tradeoffs aren't worth it -- I'm sticking with the stuff from the factory.

-rob.

[Gornlo]

I'm glad to see talk of the xMac gaining traction. Hopefully Apple will finally release one, I, and more than a few of my friends, would buy one instantly.